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Early 2011 Model: A1278 / 2.3 GHz i5 or 2.7 GHz i7 processor

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New Hybrid drive not working in machine.

Hi

Trying to put a bigger Seagate momentus XT 750 Hybrid drive in my early 2011 13" MBP.

Drive formatted and partitioned via a caddy and then cloned using CCC. I then made it the start up disk, tested it would start up (in the caddy) before I put it in the mac but I just get the flashing folder now!

The original drive works fine (I'm using it now) so I doubt it's the SATA cable. This is driving me mad as other people have had success, any ideas please?

Thanks in advance

Graham

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Hi Dan

Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. Sadly the firmware is all up to date.

In the system profiler I found this ....

Vendor: Intel

Product: 6 Series Chipset

Link Speed: 6 Gigabit

Negotiated Link Speed: 3 Gigabit

Physical Interconnect: SATA

Is the negotiated link speed something I should worry about, if so do I need to jumper the drive?

All the best

Graham

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Sounds like you have a bad SATA cable here. Apple & some 3rd parties got a run of bad cables (incorrectly built) so the SATA I/O speed is messed up (as you see in your Profile). Your 2nd gen. drive is only SATA III (6.0 Gb/s) so it won't work without changing the cable to a good SATA III cable or you will need to jumper it down to SATA I (1.5) which would be your last option here. Or, get the older gen of the drive which is SATA II (3.0 Gb/s)

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If the drive works externally (in the caddy) as the startup disk then your issue is the SATA I/O speed of the drive is not compatible with your system. Did you upgrade the EFI firmware? Apple updated it to support SATA III (6.0 Gb/s), otherwise your system is SATA II (3 Gb/s). Apple TN EFI & SMC firmware updates for Intel-based Macs

Your drive is likely the 2nd gen version of the Seagate momentus XT series which is SATA III the older one is SATA II.

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Hi Folks

I've cracked it (UK English expression for it works)

For whatever reason it didn't like CCC. I had to make a bootable mavericks drive on a usb stick using Diskmaker X (Freeware but accepts donations).

Then I could partition and install via the mavericks installer, then use migration assistant to get all my old data. HOWEVER...... the original mac book pro disk cannot now be read by the machine in a caddy????, so I used the back up I'd made before all this debacle started.

It is so important to have a copy of the original hard drive before you attempt this!!!!!

Interestingly also the SATA negotiation speed has gone from 3 to 6Gb, (all the firmware was up to date)

So a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to reply to my post, and hopefully anyone reading this with similar problems won't now waste 2 days trying to get the Seagate XT 750 working

All the best

Graham

Update

Hi Dan

I put my old laptop drive in running Mavericks and made a USB pen drive bootable version of Mavericks using Diskmaker X. I used this as the startup disc.

I swapped out the original drive for the Momentus and ran the Mavericks installer which partitioned/formatted the Seagate and installed Mavericks onto this then used migration assistant from a cloned drive.

The original drive can't be seen now but the cloned one can in a firewire caddy. I think it's a SATA issue, my mbp now has a 6gb negotiated speed. It's like a new machine now, I'm very pleased I persevered

Graham

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So you have to have an older OS present for the installer to install on the drive. So you can't install on a bare drive from a second running drive. mmm... I just finished upgrading my two home systems. I'll have to check into that at work when we do some upgrades in the coming weeks.

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Your HD might be the wrong format type (you need: Journaled HFS+) Which with the cloning software could also explain why you had problems. As your disk is no longer working try reformatting it in the caddy Disk Utility should also tell you what the current format is. In any case you will want a second drive of your stuff as you never know when you'll need it.

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Graham will be eternally grateful.
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